


the swell of the water, the crash of the wave

by starbeyy



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Cancer, Falling In Love, Inspired by The Good Place (TV), M/M, Philosophy, Philosophy Professor Tsukishima, Pining Tsukishima Kei, Slow-ish burn, lots of talk about death and afterlife, very sad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-19 08:28:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29871918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starbeyy/pseuds/starbeyy
Summary: When a mysterious man appears outside of philosophy professor Tsukishima Kei's lecture hall begging to learn about how to be a good person and live a good life, he reluctantly decides to hold private classes late in the night for Yamaguchi Tadashi who refuses to tell him anything but his name and his past profession.Because Yamaguchi’s sudden interest in the meaning of life is no coincidence,it's actually quite a normal reaction people have to learning that they’ll be dead within the year.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Tsukishima Kei/Yamaguchi Tadashi
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	the swell of the water, the crash of the wave

**Author's Note:**

> i bawled my eyes out to the finale of The Good Place and then i came up with this idea. it is going to be sad. like very sad. but also good. and i get to flex my philosophy knowledge (i mean, it's gotta be good for something). anywho  
> enjoy :))))

“And when we talk about morality, we must always consider the work of John Stuart Mill with utilitarianism—what is the greatest amount of good that can be done for the greatest number of people?”

Professor Tsukishima strode to the other end of the classroom. As the clock struck nine, he glanced out to a sea of half-dead, half-interested faces staring back at him. Some students had succumbed to their usual nap while others were typing away fervently at their notepad. With only fifteen minutes left in the class, he considered being a little less of a hardass and letting them go early.

“But that, of course, is only one way of looking at what is right and what is wrong. Is morality limited to the physical outcomes it produces? Or, rather, is it the result of human interpretation? A justification easily bent?”

Another student nodded off, but Tsukishima didn’t pay them much mind. This was his favorite module, after all.

“Aristotle believed that evil didn’t even exist in the world, it was simply the absence of good things. Nietzsche, meanwhile, would’ve laughed in his face.”

Some of the students smiled at his comment. Even so, Tsukishima continued, now striding to the other side of the room.

“This is all assuming that living a good life is even worth it,” he said, “what’s the point if we all die in the end?”

He heaved a deep breath and took one last look around the quiet room. Some of the students reacted minimally to his query, others shifted uncomfortably in their seat or looked down at their shoes. In any case, Tsukishima couldn’t help but break a small smile.

“Perhaps,” he teased, “there is something in life we owe each other.”

The silence was thick, palpable. Even the sleeping students had become unknowingly respectful of the moment that had befallen them. Out of the corner of his eye, Tsukishima saw a flash of green race past the door he usually kept open for air flow. He furrowed his brow, but eventually accepted that it was late, and his eyes were most definitely playing tricks on him.

“And that’s all I have for you.”

Right as he spoke his parting words, the students in the giant lecture hall began to rustle, shoving papers into their backpacks and shutting their laptops and shaking their neighbor awake.

“Read Kant,” he commanded, “if you don’t, I’ll be able to tell in next week’s discussion.”

Even as he shouted out the homework, some of the kids had already slipped out the back doors that Tsukishima would have to take four flights of stairs to get to. Others lingered in their seats either finishing off their notes or chatting with their neighbor, no doubt complaining about the professor’s impossible reading load. It was Tsukishima’s wager: he gave his students lots of reading so that he never had to give them an exam. That is, unless a student tried to skate by without reading a word, then he’d slip them a four-page test and a nefarious smile at their very last class while the rest of the students sat in a circle and argued playfully, each getting to embody the philosopher of their choice.

Yet, it was more of a tell for the students who could read a few pages and bullshit the rest of the information. He knew because he was that student in college. Now that he has done his hard work and gotten his PhD, he wishes he’d taken his sweet time with the philosophers in his youth like he did now. Even if just one student felt as he did all those years ago, perhaps all the hard work would be worth it.

It didn’t take long for the class to empty. One of the girls had set something on his desk, probably a late assignment, and he’d greeted her with a blithe smile. Sure, Dr. Tsukishima wasn’t the warmest of professors, but he didn’t think he needed to be.

“If you wanted to be coddled,” he’d say, “go to the sociology professor.”

It’s why he wasn’t so much a fan of the wishy-washy Eastern Philosophers, hence his expertise in Western Philosophy and his position teaching both the Intro and Advanced course of the subject. The fact hadn’t gone over well with his parents since they perceived he was ‘rejecting his Japanese upbringing’ and ‘bringing dishonor to the gods that protected him’ but with Nietzsche glued to his hip for most of his undergraduate education, Tsukishima didn’t care about niceties or pleasing those around him.

Since, he’s abandoned his Nietzsche fanaticism, but he still hasn’t meshed with any Eastern Philosopher. They were sappy, too sappy for his taste—all that talk about life and death and reincarnation was all speculation, how they _felt_. Tsukishima wanted to know what was true and real, things he could prove.

And, frankly, he knew there was someone or something outside the side door, watching him.

He shoved a few books into his leather bag and shot a mean look towards the propped door. Just like before, there was no one, just a sliver of the campus around him and a low whistle of night air. Tsukishima pursed his lips and turned back to his bag, gathering his lecture notes next. He thought about how long the drive home would be and what he would make for dinner. He had leftovers from the night prior, but he wasn’t really in the mood for fish. Maybe he could order something on the way home? No, that would take too much time. And he recorded that episode of Jeopardy which he wanted to watch—

Again, the flash of green danced in the corner of his eye. Now, Tsukishima’s usually steady heart had started to thrum. Had someone come to mug him? Had they seen his Italian leather bag and nicely tailored tweed jacket and thought he was about to saunter off to some sportscar? How was he supposed to tell them that he had gotten the jacket from an old friend and that the car he was about to drive away in was the same Honda he’d had since grad school?

Without a word, Tsukishima locked the front of his bag and kept a close eye on the door, waiting for the flash of green to pass by.

 _A leaf_ , he concluded, _that’s all it was, some leaf falling from a tree._

Tsukishima scoffed. It was a good thing there was no one around to witness his slip up because he wasn’t one for that sort of vulnerability. There was a reason he liked Western philosophy and maintained such a cool demeanor with his students.

Eventually, his mind wandered back to the dinner dilemma. There was no doubt that his neighbor would be up, waiting for him to come home so he could check if the man ate. It was annoying. He was some orange-haired sports fanatic and his equally dim-witted boyfriend who set volleyballs against the wall all night. Even since Tsukishima let it slip that he played in high school then on a rec team in college, the pair haven’t left him alone. They’re always at his door asking for a pick-up game which he has to turn down because he’s a professor and he doesn’t have time to be playing volleyball like he used to.

With a sigh, Tsukishima slung the rather heavy bag over his shoulder and palmed around the desk for his keys. The clinked around in his hand as he picked them up and stifled a strong yawn. Maybe he’d just have to settle for the fish. Unless his neighbors had made something—

“Excuse me?”

Tsukishima nearly jumped out of his own skin. It was a small, kind voice, but the fact that there was any voice at all in the empty lecture hall that wasn’t his was enough to immobilize his heart. He sighed and placed a hand over his now rapping heart as his gaze shot back to the door where he swore that he saw a flash of green not thirty seconds earlier.

Standing in the doorway was a man. Well, he was tall enough to be considered a man, but his build was lanky and thin like he was the type to eat and eat and never gain an ounce. His skin was rather pale bar the barrage of dark brown freckles that spotted all over his face and down his arms. He was clad in a fitted pair of khakis and a forest green polo shirt, one of the colors of the university. His hair was a muddy sort of color, and it stuck up in all these strange places.

Tsukishima couldn’t see his face very well—he had his poor eyesight to thank for that—but he could see the man’s eyes were large and rounder than most Japanese men. Even so, his lid had no crease, just a smooth surface running from his lash-line to his small, wispy brows. His nose was mostly normal and so were his lips, except that they were pinker than most lips like he was constantly working at them with his teeth or something.

He was standing rather awkwardly with a banker’s box grasped between his hands and pressed up against his front. He looked at Tsukishima like _he_ was the one who’d been startled.

“Can I help you?” Tsukishima asked in the most even voice he could muster.

“Oh,” the man perked up, “I-I was—well—”

“Are you a student?”

Tsukishima wanted to be home. He wanted to be sitting in his dinky old car and blasting music and driving home where he would stuff his face with leftovers and zonk out during the latest episode of Jeopardy. Instead, he was trying the end this interaction as soon as possible.

“No,” said the man in the doorway, “I actually work here—well, I used to.”

He motioned to the box. Tsukishima eyed it suspiciously as he adjusted his fingers around the handles.

“Then what do you need?”

Yes, it was cold. But Tsukishima was hungry.

“I was—passing by your door while you were teaching,” said the man, “and it sounded so interesting so I—stayed.”

His voice was low, but it cracked and swooped like a bird that had been separated from the formation, desperate to fly in its own path. His entire body quivered like the leaf Tsukishima had thought he was seeing fly around outside the open door.

“Oh,” Tsukishima replied flatly, “I’m glad you liked it.”

Tsukishima hiked his bag up onto his shoulder and made a beeline for the door he usually went out of. But he sensed the man’s movement and knew he’d walked further into the classroom.

“I—” he called out, “I actually have a question for you.”

Turning on his heel, Tsukishima looked at the man’s harrowed expression. He was holding onto the box now for dear life and his face looked paler than before. Tsukishima’s brow knitted and his eyes raked up from the man’s ratty converse to the tops of his frazzled mess of hair.

“What is it?” He asked coldly.

The man heaved a sigh of relief and situated himself into a more relaxed position with the box still standing at attention between the two of them—that and the twenty feet of space they’d left from one man’s feet to the others.

“Well—you talked about being good,” he said softly.

He said the word like it was something foreign to him, a brand-new word he’d never uttered before. It hung heavy on his tongue and rang solidly through the empty lecture hall.

“But how does someone know if they’re good? If they’re living the 'good life’?”

Tsukishima straightened his posture and adjusted the bag at his hip.

“There’s no simple answer to that question,” Tsukishima said plainly, “philosophers have spent ages trying to answer it, I spend three weeks of my class deliberating about that very question.”

“Then that means there’s things to learn, right?”

The man’s voice was laced with an eagerness that Tsukishima had never heard. Well, he actually had heard it, only once before—

“It means that people have thought and come up with conclusions,” he continued, “I want to know those conclusions.”

Tsukishima quirked his brow. The man had stepped even closer, his grip now white-knuckled around his little banker’s box.

“Then look them up on the Internet,” Tsukishima said bitingly before passing the man with his box in pursuit of the door he’d come in through.

He didn’t dare look back, he knew exactly the expression he’d be met with. The mysterious man would be stood there like a kicked puppy in the rain with his stupid little box and his untucked polo looking sad because Tsukishima had said something cold to him. But it wasn’t Tsukishima’s job to do charity work. He was a professor and he got paid for teaching his classes, not some random guy who leeched on his lecture.

At least, that was the line of thinking that carried him all the way to the side door which led to the rain-soaked parking lot. When had it rained? Now he’d have to drive through all those damn puddles on the way home. And what if it started raining again? He’d left his umbrella in the classroom and there was _no way_ he was going back in there.

Not until he had to teach again, at least.

* * *

“Kant believed in what he called the Categorical Imperative, it is the core value, the totally rational principle we must follow no matter what our flesh wants us to do.”

The sound of scratching pencils filled the now silent lecture hall. The following week had come swiftly and between lesson planning and arguing with his next-door neighbors, Tsukishima hadn’t had even one second to think about the mysterious man from the week prior. Whenever he did, he’d chuckle and brush the thought away. If the guy wanted to learn about philosophy so badly, he should’ve just taken his class.

“To Kant, being guided by your passions is a decision. Being guided by your morals is much closer to humanity’s nature. Why else would we have legal sense and a sort of innate knowing of right and wrong?”

Some students nodded, others nodded off. Same old, same old.

“But isn’t that rejecting any of the ancients that have come before him?” One of the students chimed in.

“Certainly,” Tsukishima stuffed his hands in his pockets and leaned against the edge of his desk, “that’s what makes his beliefs so powerful. He formed them knowing what he was up against.”

The student who had asked the question nodded deftly and returned to her notes, scribbling something hastily.

“Kant’s philosophy can actually be boiled down into one simple question: What is it that I ought to do?”

For the ones who were still awake, they eyed Tsukishima strangely at his proposal. Tsukishima only flashed them the ghost of a smile and continued.

“Not what is it that I _should_ do or what I _have_ to do,” he clarified, “but what _ought_ I to do?”

He leaned in just one inch as the clocked ticked to 9:15.

“What do I owe to others in this little, meaningless life I lead?”

Another moment of silence befell the classroom. A few of the students had noticed the time arrive and already begun to gather their papers and close their computers, but they were doing so silently, keeping a close eye on the professor.

“That’s all I have for you tonight,” Tsukishima said, “I want those papers on my desk at the beginning of next week’s lecture. If you use the entire title of Kant’s book in your citation instead of just his last name and the page number, I’ll know you were struggling to meet your word count. Just meeting it is falling under it, exceeding it is actually meeting it.”

A couple kids groaned subtly at his words. He smiled and enjoyed their pain only a little. After all, not that long ago, it was him in those seats groaning about ten-page papers and thirty-page nightly readings. What was the fun of being a professor if you couldn’t torture them like the ancients tortured you? That was probably how Kant felt.

Eventually the students had mostly vacated the hall like they did every week, bar a few who chatted near the doors or took a little longer than usual to pack up their things. Tsukishima made quick work of shoving his own things into his bag and gathering his keys and phone. There was a new episode of this forensics show he liked on that evening and he really didn’t want to miss it. So, with a new jaunt in his step, Tsukishima sauntered towards the door.

“Oh, hi!”

Standing right outside, obviously planted to give Tsukishima a heart attack, was the same man from the week prior, the one he’d been so eager to forget. Tsukishima suppressed a groan when he saw him, the scrawny and pale entity that was a few inches shorter than him. However, this time, he’d forgone his forest-green polo for a band t-shirt and an oversized flannel and changed out his fitted khakis for torn-up, weathered jeans. His hair was still mud-brown and unruly.

The biggest difference, however, was that instead of a banker’s box, he was clutching a beat-up book in his hands.

It was a big book, hardcover, the paper lining of which had been torn and yellowed with continued use. The only thing that seemed remotely new about the thing was the neon sticky notes hanging out of it, jutting every which way and creating a nauseating mixture of bright colors.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you!” He cried.

Tsukishima scowled, eyes still trained on the book which the man was pressing into with his dull and bitten fingernails. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of the man’s pleading expression, eyes wide and innocent-looking.

“I did what you asked,” he said dutifully.

Tsukishima’s eyes eventually tore away from the book to glare at the man’s face. Perhaps he wouldn’t have to say anything, and the icy look would be enough.

“At the end of your last class you said to read Kant so—” he motioned with the book, “I read Kant.”

With another glance, Tsukishima trailed down each bright pink and neon yellow sticky note that was hanging off of the pages. There was one every so often, a cluster of them in the center, and a good handful towards the end of the book.

“You read the entire thing?” Tsukishima asked, suppressing his amazement.

“Well, you didn’t say _what_ to read so—” he shrugged, “yeah. I read it all.”

Tsukishima’s posture straightened upon instinct. He took one steadying step back as the man pulled the book back towards himself and squinted at the cover.

“I mean, I didn’t understand a word of it,” he chuckled, “but I read it.”

“In just one week?” Tsukishima quirked his brow.

“Well—” the man pursed his lips, “I actually read it all in one night, but I didn’t understand it so I just kept reading it over and over. That’s what all the sticky notes are, questions and stuff I wanted to ask you about.”

_He read Kant all in one night._

He’d never met anyone who would willingly read that assignment all in one night. None of his students, especially. Tsukishima shook the thought from his head. He had to be lying, this guy had to be messing with him, there was no way he sat down and spent an entire night reading Kant’s _Metaphysics of Morals_. Tsukishima stifled a chuckle of disbelief. He was just waiting for the guy to say he was getting punked and call the men with the cameras out.

“Why?” Tsukishima hissed.

“I already told you,” he insisted, “I want to know how to live a good life.”

The book had become merely a prop now, something for the guy to hold in his hand as he pled with Tsukishima. Color had returned to his face, even in the pale glow of moonlight that streamed through the quad.

“I can’t teach you that,” Tsukishima brushed him off and turned down the sidewalk which led to the parking lot.

“Wait!” He called after him.

A hand gripped the fabric of Tsukishima’s sleeve and tugged. Tsukishima’s face burned with annoyance. This guy couldn’t be for real. Reading Kant all in one night? Grabbing onto him like this?

“What?” Tsukishima spat at the man.

His lips parted to say something, but the fear of being yelled at blocked any of his words. His face flushed to its usual terrified pale and his lips began to tremble. His lashes were long, long enough to kiss his cheekbones every time he blinked. At least, that’s what Tsukishima observed in the long moment that they stared at one another, the crickets leftover from summer humming in the distance and the moon illuminating their performance.

“I’m—sorry,” he whispered, his fingers falling slowly from Tsukishima’s jacket.

Tsukishima heaved an irritated sigh. He readjusted his bag on his shoulder while the man clutched the Kant book close to his chest. Tsukishima pursed his lips and turned away from the sight, desperate to think about literally anything else. He had no obligation to teach him anything, even if he did read Kant all in one night.

_Who reads Kant all in one night?_

To the beat of his thoughts, Tsukishima stomped down the path and yet again resisted the urge to look back. When he started as the youngest philosophy professor at the university, he’d made it obvious that he wasn’t there to make friends, he was there to teach. He went to campus, he taught, then he left. That’s what he was paid to do, at least.

Teach. That’s what he was paid to do.

Perhaps teaching this guy wouldn’t be the friendship that Tsukishima so ardently avoided as it would be the simple relationship he knew so well—a student, a teacher.

_And he did read Kant all in one night._

There’s hordes of philosophical inquiry and debate into the idea of fate. Some believe that you are born with your life pre-determined, written our before you in stone; others believe that life is a series of winding, forking paths, and you must only choose which you will take. And then there are those who believe life is a blank canvas awaiting the vibrant colors of a life lived courageously. But it didn’t matter what any of them believed in that moment where Tsukishima turned around and uttered the words that he was sure were small and insignificant.

“Read Plato’s Allegory of the Cave and come back next week,” he mumbled to the mysterious man.

But if there is one thing you learn in philosophy: an act is only small and insignificant if you believe your life and the lives of others to be so.

“I will,” he nodded and smiled, “I promise!”

Tsukishima could only watch as the man turned, tucked Kant under his armpit, and raced off into the night, the soles of his shoes smacking against the pavement. In a matter of seconds, he was gone, only existing as a memory in Tsukishima’s psyche. He even glanced around, searching for some sort of affirmation that he was even real: someone else that had been watching on to their interaction or something he’d left on the sidewalk. Yet, there was nothing.

Perhaps he was a ghost.

Or maybe he had never existed at all.

* * *

“If we truly are rational agents bound by moral obligations, then we must act as such—we must comply.”

Tsukishima was standing closer to the front row of students this week, mostly so he could sneak glances to the side door which was propped open just like always.

“But what is this overarching moral obligation? Who can say?” Tsukishima continued, “Even Kant observed this hole in his own reasoning.”

He caught another glimpse of the door. Tsukishima wasn’t sure what he was expecting, his class was still scheduled for fifteen more minutes so even if the man was there, he couldn’t interrupt his class to see if he was really there or if he’d really read the Allegory of the Cave. Tsukishima couldn’t even believe that he was getting distracted during his lecture—he _never_ got distracted while he taught.

“When we determine a rational will, therein we can find morality, right?” Some student had asked.

Tsukishima was ripped back to reality by the peeling voice.

“Y-yes, at least, according to Kant,” he stammered.

The student’s brow dropped in suspicion, but he eventually returned dutifully to his laptop screen where he was clicking out a series of notes.

“Then would Kant personalize ‘goodness’ more than other philosophers?”

“Perhaps,” Tsukishima tilted his head, “people reveal that they are good through good deeds, actually _being_ good.”

She hummed in understanding and continued to tap the end of her pencil against the wooden desk. Tsukishima stole another chaste glance to the open door but, this time, there was something at the edge of it—a flash of muddy brown hair and the edge of a checked flannel.

“Y’know what? I’m letting you guys go early,” Tsukishima called out to the mass of students.

Most of them fell into a momentary silence at the mere suggestion. Dr. Tsukishima never let his classes out early. The momentary silence quickly became hushed, hasty conversation between the classmates, a chorus of ‘really?’ and ‘is he telling a joke?’. But Tsukishima wasn’t one to joke and even they could see he was preoccupied.

He couldn’t help it. All week, the curiosity had been eating him up. What was this guy’s name? Why was he even at the university so late at night? And what made him so interested in philosophy in the first place?

In any case, the students slowly started to pack up their things and rise from their seats, all while watching their professor to make sure he wasn’t just testing them or something. Tsukishima’s eyes were trained on the side door as he listened to the quiet shuffle of students filing out the door. Some of them were chittering excitedly now, planning what to do with the extra fifteen minutes that had now been tacked onto their evening. Others bid wary farewells to Tsukishima before slipping out the front door.

He waited eagerly for every student to leave, all while casting glances to the open door where he swore he saw colors dance. Once the very last body had left out the front door, Tsukishima pulled his lips in between his teeth and darted towards the door, all while maintaining his cool composure. He took a deep breath to steady his erratically beating heart. Why was he so nervous? It was just some guy.

With a nod, he pulled open the door and peeked outside.

And there was no one.

In both directions, there was not a soul on the sidewalk. Tsukishima’s eyes went wide and his brow fell heavy against his lashes as he checked one more time. He could’ve sworn he saw his hair and his shirt—he would testify in court saying it was true.

Perhaps his joking suspicions from the prior night had been true. Maybe the man was a ghost, a figment of his imagination sent by his psyche to teach him some sort of lesson. But why would he disappear so suddenly? Had Tsukishima learned some valuable lesson the week prior that he’d somehow forgotten? Feeling his face flush with worry, Tsukishima reeled back into the lecture hall and began to pace.

That was what he did when he was trying to think, he would pace. His PhD advisor had joked about him creating ravines in his floor, especially when he was reading a particularly dense work, but Tsukishima had always brushed it off as being ridiculous. Now, as he circled the carpet of his usual lecture hall, he could almost feel the fabric wearing down beneath his feet. Clasping his hands behind his back, Tsukishima stared straight at the ground and thought of every potential possibility that might explain the man not being there like he usually was.

Perhaps he’d had car trouble and he was stranded on the highway. Maybe he’d gotten caught up at work, the new job that he was working now that he wasn’t employed at the university anymore. It could be that he forgot, that he was sitting at home watching some brainless TV show. Or, perhaps, he’d forgotten to do the reading Tsukishima had requested and was sitting in his car, flipping through the pages like a madman to try and absorb as much information as possible.

The last suggestion made Tsukishima chuckle with a sort of satisfaction. Yes, he could read Kant all in one night, but he’d probably procrastinated reading Plato the entire week. Typical. That’s how most people were when it came to philosophy.

Yet, amidst all the more realistic suggestions, the original fear poked at the back of Tsukishima’s mind.

What if he was a ghost?

And what if he never actually existed.

Perhaps Tsukishima was as lonely as his mom always insisted he was. He lamented calling home and hearing the same speech about how she’s never going to have any grandkids because Tsukishima won’t take one moment out of his day to meet a nice girl whom he could marry and settle down with.

“Shit,” he whispered to himself.

 _Tell my parents that I’m gay_ , he added to his mental to-do list.

Because only lonely people experienced phantoms of possible acquaintances, right? Tsukishima pushed his glasses down his nose and rubbed at the spot where the grips had been digging in all day. His blonde waves had started to fall into his eyes from looking down so much.

That was it. He was going to go home. What good would it do him waiting around for some guy who he wasn’t even sure was real? He must look like a fool pacing and rubbing his nose, and Tsukishima Kei was not a fool. Thus, in a flurry of purpose, Tsukishima abandoned his pacing circle and made a beeline for the desk where his bag and keys were sitting. He was just about the grab them, thoughts of dinner and his annoying roommates floating through his head, when a door creaked in the distance.

“I’m so sorry!” A soft voice called from them.

Tsukishima’s eyes made quick work of snapping towards the door through which he’d looked not minutes earlier. Standing at the entrance, sticking his head through the opening was the same guy from the last two weeks, clad in a different variation of his prior outfit and smattered with dark freckles.

He shimmied into the room and balanced a stack of papers with both hands. Breathlessly, he carried them to the nearest desk and dropped them atop the wooden surface with an echoing pound. Tsukishima trailed him with his eyes as the man grabbed the edges of the desk and hunched over to catch his breath. His face was characteristically pale as he heaved, his knuckles quickly going white around the desk.

“I was—” he said in between breaths, “at a doctor’s appointment—got held up.”

Tsukishima’s eyes narrowed.

“What kind of doctor holds appointments at 9pm?” He asked bitingly.

The man craned his neck to look back at Tsukishima and he flashed him a smarmy sort of half smile. Tsukishima’s heart leapt just a little at the sight of it, particularly the way his eyes crinkled as he smirked.

“You got me,” he whispered, “I was at the hospital, actually.”

Tsukishima set his things down gently and stuck his hands in his pockets before sauntering over to the man who was slowly recovering from his apparent sprint to the door.

“What were you doing there?” Tsukishima asked coldly.

The man smiled again. His eyes raked up from Tsukishima’s feet all the way to his well-maintained blonde waves. Tsukishima felt like he was being observed, judged, but his body was feeling a whole host of strange sensations right now and he couldn’t choose which one to focus on.

“Visiting,” the man said plainly.

 _Visiting who?_ Tsukishima wanted to ask, but it didn’t seem like a question to ask a stranger.

“What’s that?” Tsukishima motioned towards the pile of papers with his head.

“The Allegory of the Cave,” he replied, “there were a few different versions so I just printed ‘em out and read ‘em all.”

Tsukishima had to blink in disbelief once more. Had he heard him right? How many versions had he printed out? Was his printer even functioning anymore?

“Um, okay,” Tsukishima shook his head.

The man took the quiet moment to slip into the desk next to where he’d disposed of the pile. Tsukishima dug his hands further into his pocket as he watched him fold his hands and bounce his legs excitedly beneath the tiny desk. He looked up at Tsukishima with expectant eyes and, for the first time in a long time, he found himself at a loss for words.

“What’s—your name?” He asked meekly.

The man stared at him for one moment more before his mouth cracked into a smile and he laughed. It was a gurgling laugh, like a fountain that had been shut off for the night but reignited in the early morning, the water crisp and fresh. He unfolded his hands and dragged them down his eyes as he giggled, one laugh after another. Tsukishima felt his cheeks go red and start to run hot. The guy’s laugh was so clear, it rang like a bell through the empty lecture hall, Tsukishima wondered what made it sound so melodic.

“I can’t believe I haven’t told you my name yet,” he chuckled, “it’s Yamaguchi. Yamaguchi Tadashi.”

At the end of each name, he smiled. He had to, considering the vowel each of them ended on. But Tsukishima didn’t mind so much since when he said his name, Yamaguchi would flash his uneven, overlapping row of teeth, perhaps the very thing that made his smile perpetually lopsided.

“I’m—Tsukishima Kei,” he introduced himself formally, “well—Professor Tsukishima.”

“Ah,” Yamaguchi grinned, “since I’m your student, should I use your formal title?”

Tsukishima tilted his head up and eyed Yamaguchi intensely.

“How old are you?” He asked.

“I’ll be 26 in exactly a month, November 10th,” Yamaguchi replied.

Tsukishima nodded. There was no way they were the same age, Tsukishima was turning 26 on the 27th of September, which was only a week away.

“I’ll be 26 soon, too,” he said flatly.

Yamaguchi’s eyes went wide.

“Really?” He gasped, “How’d you become a professor so young?”

Tsukishima’s cheeks flushed a little more from the compliment, but he didn’t dare show his new acquaintance such an obvious crack in his façade.

“Lots of busting my ass, very little of anything else,” Tsukishima half-joked.

Yamaguchi chuckled again, and Tsukishima made sure to catch a glimpse of his teeth. There was nothing particularly special about them, but Tsukishima was often drawn to things that weren’t special—he enjoyed the ordinary and the mundane.

“You said you work at the university,” Tsukishima blurted out, desperate to gain control over the conversation.

“Worked,” Yamaguchi corrected him, “I quit two weeks ago.”

“Did you get a new job?” Tsukishima asked.

“No,” he shook his head and flashed a lopsided grin.

Tsukishima’s brow knitted and his bottom lip pouted in confusion.

“Are you leaving?” He asked.

Yamaguchi’s lips parted, but he froze for another moment in thought, the type that drew his eyes to some indiscernible place in the distance.

“In—some form of the word, yes,” he said cryptically.

Tsukishima balled his fists in his pockets and flicked his vision towards where Yamaguchi was staring. There was nothing there but the old clock that Tsukishima’s students always watched with great fascination.

“Guess you could say I’m—moving on,” Yamaguchi’s vision returned to the present and he squinted as he said the closing word.

_Relocating?_

“Where on campus did you work?” Tsukishima asked.

“The library,” Yamaguchi replied.

Tsukishima had been in the campus library a million times, how had he never seen Yamaguchi before? At least now he knew where the guy got all that time to read and how he even had the books on-hand. Tsukishima hadn’t even thought about how strange it was that he just _happened_ to own a copy of _Metaphysics of Morality_.

“So—” Tsukishima nearly tripped up on his own question.

He fiddled with something in his pocket, a loose thread or a bit of tissue. He didn’t want to pry, but the curiosity had been nibbling away at him for weeks.

“Why the sudden interest in philosophy?” Yamaguchi finished his question for him.

Tsukishima was still so bewildered why his body was in such a frenzy. Maybe he really hadn’t talked to someone one-on-one for that long that the simple interaction was overstimulating his nervous system.

As a result, all he could do was nod.

“I can’t tell you,” Yamaguchi said casually.

Tsukishima’s head snapped up and he glared at the man who was now lounging back in his seat with a matter-of-fact expression pasted on his face.

“Why not?” Tsukishima interrogated.

Yamaguchi’s smile fell only a tad. He folded his hands solemnly in his lap, but not before he could slide something plastic off of his wrist. Tsukishima hadn’t been able to notice it before, considering that the whole interaction was overwhelming enough, but it was obvious how Yamaguchi tugged the white band off and shoved it in his pocket as subtly as he could.

“It’s a secret,” he teased.

Tsukishima scoffed and turned his head.

“Just tell me,” he muttered.

“Eventually,” Yamaguchi said knowingly.

“C’mon—”

“If you’re a good enough professor, I’ll tell you the secret.”

Tsukishima looked back to see Yamaguchi now sporting a sincere expression, his eyes dark and glittery and his mouth curved slightly at the edges. As much as Tsukishima wanted to know everything now, there was a quality to the man sitting before him that reminded him of a safe, the kind you have to press your ear against and listen for the subtlest of clicks if there’s any hope of getting it open.

“So, that’s all I have to do?” Tsukishima asked, “Teach you about how to live a good life and then you’ll tell me why you even care?”

“Swear on my life,” Yamaguchi replied.

It seemed counter-productive. Realistically, Tsukishima should’ve just denied the inane request and walked away, forgetting that the night ever happened. But he was a sucker for secrets—it’s why he ate up mystery novels like he had no other sustenance and was the kind of guy to try and guess the ending of a CSI episode before the characters did. He’d do anything to solve a good mystery.

“Alright,” Tsukishima grinned subtly, “you’re on.”

Because Yamaguchi Tadashi seemed like one hell of a mystery that he couldn’t help but try to solve.


End file.
